FAITH'S ANSWER.

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Be innocence my magic word.

Lord, here am I!

Young lips may teach the wise, Christ said;
Weak feet sad wanderers home have led;
Small hands have cheered the sick one's bed
With freshest flowers:

Yet teach me, Father! heed their sighs,
While many a soul in darkness lies,
And waits thy message; make me wise!
Lord, here am I!

And make me strong; that staff and stay,
And guide and guardian of the way,
To thee-ward I may bear, each day,
Some precious soul.

"Speak; for I hear!" make "pure in heart,” Thy face to see. Thy truth impart

In hut and hall, in church and mart.
Lord, here am I!

I ask no heaven till earth be thine,
Nor glory-crown while work of mine
Remaineth here: when Earth shall shine
Among the stars,

Her sins wiped out, her captives free,

Her voice a music unto thee,

For crown, new work give thou to me!
Lord, here am I!

EARTH'S ANGELS.

ANONYMOUS.

WHY come not spirits from the realms of glory, To visit earth as in the days of old,

The times of sacred writ and ancient story?

Is heaven more distant? or has earth grown cold?

Oft have I gazed, when sunset clouds, receding,
Waved like rich banners of a host gone by,
To catch the gleam of some white pinion speeding
Along the confines of the glowing sky.

And oft, when midnight stars in distant chillness Were calmly burning, listened late and long; But nature's pulse beat on in solemn stillness, Bearing no echo of the seraphs' song.

To Bethlehem's air was their last anthem given, When other stars before the One grew dim? Was their last presence known in Peter's prison, Or where exulting martyrs raised their hymn?

And are they all within the veil departed?

There gleams no wing along the empyrean now; And many a tear from human eyes has started,

Since angel touch has calmed a mortal's brow.

EARTH'S
'S ANGELS.

169

No earth has angels, though their forms are

moulded

But of such clay as fashions all below;

Though harps are wanting, and bright pinions folded,

We know them by the love-light on their brow.

I have seen angels by the sick one's pillow,Theirs was the soft tone and the soundless

tread;

Where smitten hearts were drooping like the wil

low,

They stood "between the weeping and the dead."

And if my sight, by earthly dimness hindered,
Beheld no hovering cherubim in air,
I doubted not, for spirits know their kindred,
They smiled upon the wingless watchers there.

There have been angels in the gloomy prison,

In crowded halls,-by the lone widow's hearth; And where they passed, the fallen have uprisen,

The giddy paused, the mourner's hope had birth.

I have seen one, whose eloquence commanding Roused the rich echoes of the human breast,

The blandishments of wealth and ease withstand

ing

That hope might reach the suffering and oppressed.

And by his side there moved a form of beauty, Strewing sweet flowers along his path of life, And looking up with meek and love-lent duty; I called her angel, but he called her wife.

O, many a spirit walks the world unheeded, That, when its veil of sadness is laid down, Shall soar aloft with pinions unimpeded,

And wear its glory like a starry crown!

"IT PROFITETH THEE NOTHING."

DISCIPLES' HYMN-BOOK.

"My child, cleanse thou thy heart; this daily life
Of alms and works, how can it profit thee,
Except low down upon the altar burn
The hidden fire of holy charity?

"Leave here thy deeds,-go seek the inner shrine; There watch, and wait, and pray, and tend thy

soul,

"IT PROFITETH THEE NOTHING."

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Till comes the grace which gives no outward sign, Till heaven and earth are bound to its control!"

Father, well know I, I have utmost need

To tend that hidden fire both night and day; But who will warm my cold, my hungry feed, While I retire to weep, and watch, and pray?

Father, before the inmost, stillest shrine
I hear the echo of that piercing cry,
And can no more implore the grace divine,
But turn to serve this poor humanity.

Father, it may be that my light is small;
But I had rather bear the pains that may
In purgatory my lost soul befall,

Than leave these ones to faint upon their way.

"My child, I fear me much thou dost postpone God's great eternity to thy low time;

But he doth deal with every heart alone,

And will not judge thy error like thy crime."